NYT's Reporter: Blaming People for their Own Layoffs is causing Sickness!

[KoKo]

and it's making our society sick. A good read if you want to know what's happened to America since the late 1970's. Interview covers NAFTA/BuyOuts/Unemployment and the way we have been manipulated for decades by the "powers that be." When you mean nothing to a Society...and you are worth nothing..... This is an article to build a new Movement on. What has happened to America?

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Transcript of “The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences” by Louis Uchitelle
YaleGlobal, 30 May 2006

COMMENTARY:

Uchitelle: It’s still a mystery to me, as much as I’ve explained it. But the paradigm shift included going from a society in which we thought of ourselves as a community if you will, everyone in it for everyone else, to this individualism which has always been a strain in American society, which got out of hand. I think that it became very convenient to blame workers for their own layoffs. We got to the point where we said, “Look, we have to lay you off because you’re not worth what we’re paying you.” A tremendous psychologically damaging blow to people. And then we said the solution is training and education and you’ll qualify for the good jobs out there. There weren’t enough good jobs out there so you’re blamed again for not enough training, not moving around, not being flexible enough. Very convenient for the Republicans and the Democrats – they didn’t have to come up with policies that might challenge the layoffs, and challenge what was going on. Very convenient of course for the CEOs. They were absolved of responsibility.

But we did not measure the social damage. We used to measure in this country all sorts of social damage. And we didn’t measure, for example, the psychological damage from being told that you don’t have value. I was amazed doing this book, you know a journalist goes out and interviews somebody for a daily story, or for a story that’s done after a month’s research, and you don’t get deeply into the lives of these people until you do a book, and then you really become involved tracking families. And I only used in the book some of the people that I got to know over the years. I never thought I would be so drawn into the psychiatric aspects of layoff. I’m not talking unemployment, unemployment is a separate issue.

Chanda: Right.

Uchitelle: Just this traumatic statement that you don’t have a place in society, in the workplace. In a society where people’s identity is very much wrapped up in the workplace among other forms of identity – family, community, so forth. The workplace is very important. So here you’re doing this damage, and I went to psychiatry, they said “Yes, we run across it all the time in therapy, and we are undermining public health.” In fact I’m going to make this point to a psychiatric convention in less than a month, and we’re not putting a warning label on it. There’s something wrong. Well, we have to measure that. If we’re not going to measure that, then we’re not going to put some sort of brakes on layoffs. Again, I do not want to say that we can stop the layoffs, but I do think that if we measured the damage we would begin to say, “Well, is there a way to lay off five people instead of ten. Are there ways to make people feel better if we lay them off? Are there social ways to deal with this problem?”

http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=7488

The following is a transcript of Nayan Chanda's interview with Louis Uchitelle, economics writer for “The New York Times” and also the author of “The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences,” conducted on May 11, 2006. – YaleGlobal

[tanyev]

1. "the psychological damage from being told you don't have value"

The same forces that are at work in spousal abuse and child abuse. America has become a battered wife. I would love to see some psychologists weigh in on that concept.

[brentspeak]

2. This is a book I want to read

Unregulated free-trade has made the American worker more disposable than ever.

[MSgt213]

3. Thanks for sharing that was exceptionally good.

[DBoon]

4. It's brutal from the hiring end too

We interview a candidate who was laid off at her prior job, get comments like "Why was she laid off? What was wrong with her? Why should we hire someone with problems?"

The idea in a layoff is the the "winners" are kept, and the "losers" disposed of (sort of like throwing out overdue food in the 'fridge)

[KoKo]

5. I hope folks will give this some votes...it sure hit home with me..reading

the whole article will really cause your gut to get a churn...but WE can DO BETTER... If we recognize what's wrong... and this article really starts a dialog...

[adriennui]

6. we've known about this for years

good jobs....educate yourself....move where the jobs are. this has been the mantra of both parties. we laughed at ross perot as al gore shilled for NAFTA along with the execrable republicans. they all suck.

[unlawflcombatnt]

8. Exactly

The answer was always more education, more training, update your skills, etc.

The only "skill" American workers have ever lacked is the "skill" to live on $2/day, like the foreign workers who replaced them. Maybe they should start teaching this new "skill" in our schools.

[sandnsea]

7. Those who don't have a place in society

There is so much more to that statement than just those who have recently been laid off; but I'm not about to dredge it all up in this thread. That is like the understatement of the century, both centuries.

[KoKo]

9. kick for morning crowd.... n/t